Massimo Carrera admitted he substituted Spartak Moscow's top goalscorer Quincy Promes by mistake as they were held to a 1-1 draw by Maribor in the Champions League.
Promes was hauled off with a suspected toe injury seconds after Damjan Bohar scored in the 85th minute to cancel out Aleksandr Samedov's opener for the visitors.
"Promes' substitution was a mistake," Carrera told reporters.
"I wanted to replace another player, but he [Promes] pointed to his foot and I thought he had a problem. But it wasn't so."
"We didn't respond well after we scored and that led to the equaliser," said Carrera.
"We always play to the best of our abilities. We want to win at all our matches. There are five matches left and everything is still possible.
"We played our game, we had enough chances to score, but the result is fair. Both teams deserve a point."
After seeing his side snatch a point in the dying minutes, Maribor coach Darko Milanic said he did not want the final whistle to blow and he singled 25-year-old midfielder Bohar out for praise.
"We saw a great match, excellent, even. I am very satisfied," said Milanic. "We had lots of chances. We managed to equalise, we showed great character.
"I thought we could crush them. I wanted to up the pressure and I wanted to keep on playing. We were tactically very good when they [Spartak] had the upper hand.
"Bohar is a specialist for these European matches. He is very good at finding spaces. He was very solid.
"Of course one wants always to achieve even more, but we are really satisfied with this result."
